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NEW YORK, FEB. 11 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) – An international study for a bank regulators’ group has found deficiencies in the way banks measured and reported counterparty exposures. But the regulators themselves may share responsibility for the shortcomings, as they have provided little specific guidance for the banks.

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NEW YORK, Feb. 11 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Last week, representatives of the Securities and Exchange Commission gave the first of many reports concerning its “presence exam” initiative for conducting initial regulatory exams of private advisers, and reported a lower rate of deficiencies compared with regular exams. The panel highlighted exam findings and staff observations concerning investment conflicts, marketing, valuation and custody.

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The year 2013 saw a raft of new legislation stemming from regulators worldwide and 2014 looked like the year in which the dust would settle and that compliance professionals could spend focusing on implementing those changes. However, this has not been the case and compliance staff are still operating in a changing environment, where political pressures and cultural inertia mean that it is hard to pause for breath.

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NEW YORK, Jan. 24 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Banks that have relied over the years on a special type of assets to fulfill their capital requirements may soon have to restructure their investment portfolios to bring it in line with the Volcker rule limiting risky trading by banks. At stake is the treatment of the Trust Preferred Securities (TRuPS), whose inclusion as “investments in entities referred to as covered funds” such as collateralized loan obligations and collateralized debt obligations, would oblige banks to divest them in compliance with the Volcker rule.

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NEW YORK, Jan. 16 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) – The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) released the public portions of resolution plansfor 116 institutions that submitted plans for the first time in December 2013, a group comprising smaller banks affected by Dodd-Frank requirements for winding-up plans.

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NEW YORK, Jan. 15 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday published the 2014 priorities for its national examination program (NEP). Prominent among the priorities were scrutiny of “perceived control weakness” at financial exchanges and oversight of retirement investments.

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NEW YORK, Jan.7 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Broker dealers have been put on notice of regulatory priority areas where they will be examined in 2014. The topics seen as posing greatest risk to investors and markets were issued in a letter by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) on the first day of the year. They include new areas such as seeing patterns of suspicious activity by representatives, including questioning firms why they hired the persons.

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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Jan. 6 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - The adoption of the Volcker rule by five U.S. regulatory agencies last week means that thousands of lawyers and compliance professionals will be working overtime to understand how to comply with the rule while keeping within the spirit of the law.

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NEW YORK, Jan.6 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - The U.S. Treasury Department’s anti-money laundering unit has mailed roughly a dozen letters to businesses linked to the digital currency Bitcoin warning they may be money transmitters and be required to comply with federal law and regulation, a Treasury spokesman told Compliance Complete.

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NEW YORK, Dec. 18 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) – The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, under mounting pressure from the industry for greater clarity, announced on Tuesday additional details on its “Single Point of Entry” resolution plans for failed banks.
The basic concept is to close the holding company of a failed firm, and transfer its healthy subsidiaries into a new bridge institution that could be managed while the resolution of the defunct company proceeds. Shareholders would be wiped out under the plan, while unsecured creditors could seek equity claims as a means to recapitalize the new institution. Should the subsidiaries require liquidity to operate, they would borrow from the bridge, which in turn may borrow from an “orderly liquidation fund” funded by the U.S. Treasury. (more…)